Dear Mr Ed Balls and the DCSF- No thankyou

Inspired by Helen, Jax and Merry who say it far more eloqently. However I want to say my piece too.

From the moment your plans were conceived in the minds of the beaurocrats, they were flawed. You are seeking to invade a place you know NOTHING about, to oversee something that is fundamentally impossible to judge fairly and compare. To make rules where rules simply DO NOT apply. From the second you chose to interfere in the right of a parent to make decisions for their family, you were treading a dangerous path. A path that claims a parent no longer knows how to parent, how to keep their children safe, how to make decisions on what is right for their own children, their own flesh and blood. You are wrong.

Without any help from you I was able to conceive my children, birth my children, nurture and grow my children. I helped my children take their first step, say their first word, I showed them colours and shapes, introduced them to the world around them. I gave them pens so they could write their first words, and books so they could begin to read. I took them to parks and beaches, they played in the rain. I did all this without your help- They don't need you.

Without your help they survived their first five years, before they were of "school age". They are alive, well and growing. They are not harmed or abused. They are fed nutritious food and clothed in appropriate clothing, they are given more books than they know what to do with, they have sensible boundaries and rules. They also have been given bounds of unconditional love, they have been encouraged to love learning for its own sake not for the sake of a test grade. They have achieve highly because they want too, not because they have too. They don't need you.

Without you they have survived childhood illnesses, have had broken bones ... AND recovered. They have gotten scraped knees, bumped heads and managed to cope very well thankyou. They have learnt to be sociable, to talk to people of many different ages, to make friends with whom they choose, not with one of thirty other people of the same age that they are forced to spend their time with. They don't need you.

My children have amazing and vivid imaginations, they know hundreds of facts about animals, they draw beautifully and with skill, they write novels for fan-fiction, they vault and cartwheel all day. They learn other languages, they do science experiments. If I cant find a child it is because they are reading a book, drawing from nature of playing the piano. They dance, they sing, they read they play. Happily, without need for instruction and guidance. They don't need you.

There is nothing for you to do here, there is no place that requires you to refine or improve what is happening or what my children have access too. They do not need to be told what to learn, or how or when. Their learning never stops, it has no need too. They do not need to be presented with a curriculum so narrow that it excludes their interests, ignores their ability, or stunts their creativity. If we choose a curriculum it will be because they want too. They managed to test at high intelligence and ability without ANY of your rules in place and without any help from you. They do not need you.

There will be no questioning of my children alone. And there will be no prescribing of what they should and shouldnt learn. And they will not have all independant thought stamped out of them or their love of life and learning taken from them. Just because you are unable to get the schools you ARE responsible for in order, you are not going to start meddling in my family, in our life, or in my children's education.

How can you say that what is 'suitable' and 'efficient' for us, will be what is suitable and efficient for these people, or these people, or these people. You cant! Because every child is different and a state run, prescriptive curriculum will only strip valuable parts of these children's identity, striping colour from their lives and learning.

But I am beginning to think that THAT is what you want. I am beginning to suspect that the State wishes to produce mindless drones, who dont know how to think, question or lead. But what happens, Mr Balls, when there is no-one to think, question or lead. Well let me tell you; it will be the Home Educated, the Gypsies, the Travellers, those learning and living their way; those who retain that independant thought, that will have the skills to step up and take charge.

What you are doing Mr Balls, is wrong. And I will not go down quietly, I will not comply without question and I will not give up fighting for what is right. So Mr Balls, thanks but NO THANKS!